The present invention relates to product handling equipment and, more particularly, apparatus for reorienting products and arranging the reoriented products in predetermined patterns. The present invention specifically relates to apparatus for the handling of products such as articles of baked goods, including packaged loaves of bread, buns, rolls, boxed products, and the like, as well as other types of goods which must be grouped in predetermined patterns.
It is common for baked goods such as loaves of bread, buns and the like to be packaged by placing them into individual plastic bags with the open end of each plastic bag being gathered and having a gripping closure placed therearound inwardly of the open end. The terminal portion of the bag outwardly of the closure expands to form a fantail end portion which is generally referred to in the bread packaging art as a "tail".
The packaged bread loaves or other baked goods are generally placed in trays or containers for transportation to retail outlets. The packages are typically arranged in a particular pattern for loading in the container, depending upon the size and shape of the container and the size and shape of the individual packages, so as to place the maximum number of packages in each container without damage to the packages and without having any portion of a package, including the tail, project beyond a container.
For this purpose, pattern forming devices are known in the art for arranging individual articles into predetermined patterns and then handling the pattern as a unit for loading into an associated container or the like. One such pattern forming arrangement is used in palletizing machines for arranging layers of packages for stacking on a pallet. But palletizers are designed for use with relatively large packages such as sacks of flour, cement, or the like and are typically not designed for use in handling fragile small articles such as packaged baked goods.
Pattern formers designed for handling packaged baked goods are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,739,902 and 3,779,363. But these devices, as well as many of the palletizing devices, require one or more changes in direction of the product path during the pattern forming operation. These changes in direction necessarily increase the amount of handling that each package must undergo, thereby increasing the chance of damage to the packaged products.
One type of palletizing apparatus disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,971,659, effects the formation of patterns of products with only a single direction change. However, this apparatus requires a lifting of the products vertically from the conveyor path in order to effect reorientation thereof.